Gibson found commercial success with its early guitars,
but the company’s arched tops and backs had very little influence on other
brands. It took three decades until other companies began to mass-produce
carved-top guitars. That first competition was largely due to the decline of the
banjo and the guitar’s rise to the preeminent spot in jazz rhythm sections.
Suddenly, in the early 1930s, Epiphone, Martin, and other companies entered the
archtop market to compete for jazz players’ favor. Vega was not among that first
wave of carved-top builders; they waited until around 1934 to introduce a line
of “modern” archtops. Perhaps they were hoping for a revival of the banjo
market, which had been enormously profitable for the company in previous
decades. Their first step toward a modern archtop guitar world came around 1928,
but it was really a modified flat-top design: the cylinder models.

Vega had been building cylinder-backed
mandolins since the early 1910s; they were officially
called “lute” mandolins, the “cylinder” term being a modern description. The
backs of these instruments were molded into curved ridges that ran the length of
the body, which increased the size of the sound box and the volume and
projection of the instrument. This construction technique was probably
appropriated from the Howe-Orme mandolins and
guitars built in the 1890s; it’s likely that the same Boston-area luthiers
contributed to both companies. Howe-Orme arched the tops and backs of their
instruments, while Vega only arched the backs of their mandolins. Probably to
compete visually with Gibson archtops, Vega molded the tops of their cylinder
guitars as well as the backs.

Early cylinder guitar model were
labeled A, B and C depending on woods and trim, and they were fitted with
trapeze tailpieces. The line had been changed somewhat by 1931 and all models
were henceforth fitted with pin bridges. A
catalog still shows three basic models, but with significant differences
between them. The cheapest was actually the largest, the “Extra large Auditorium
size” Orchestra Model featuring a mahogany back and suspended pickguard for $80.
The imaginatively-named Arched Model featured a figured maple back and came with
a concert-sized body for $125 or grand concert for $135. It also featured a
slotted headstock, but for whatever reason Vega did not fit it with a pickguard.
The most expensive guitar in the Vega line was the arched Cremona model,
featuring f-holes (including one through the suspended pickguard) and a maple
back for $200 (grand concert) or $220 (extra large grand concert).

The guitar pictured above is the middle model with a
grand concert body. With a $135 list price, it was more expensive than any
Gibson flat-top model and in between the price of an L-3 and L-4. It was also in
between the price of a Martin 00-42 and 00-45. It was an expensive guitar, but
not really what players were looking for. Its sound is somewhere in between a
flat-top and an archtop, quite loud and pleasant but lacking the strong
mid-range that was selectively picked up by radio and recording equipment of the
time. This particular guitar is all original; the neck has been reset, but there
are no replacement parts.